AmbassadorBlog

305 - Peacekeeping: the Sorcerer's Apprentice

On May 29, 1948, the UN Security Council called for a cease-fire in the Arab-Israel war of 1948 and set up the foundation for the first UN peacekeeping mission by calling for military observers to assist the UN Mediator and the Truce Commission in overseeing the cease-fire.  The result became the UN Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO). Resolution 50 incorporated about a page of text and was limited to 12 paragraphs, which were each one sentence long.

On May 21, 2004, the Security Council issued its resolution number 1545 establishing the United Nations Operation in Burundi (ONUB), a peacekeeping operation.  That resolution has three pages of single spaced text in the preamblular paragraphs alone and five pages of 23 operational paragraphs. 
Whereas Resolution 50 simply called for a ceasefire and limits on introducing fighting personnel into the conflict, Resolution 1545 authorized the UN peacekeeping operation as well, but then it went on to set out its structure, size, and mandate.  Its mandate included monitoring the ceasefire, investigating violations, promoting confidence building measures, providing security at pre-disarmament assembly sites, collecting weapons, dismantling militias, quartering the Burundi Armed forces, monitoring illegal flow of arms, creating security for humanitarian efforts, protecting civilians and UN personnel.  Then it adds the responsibility to advise the government of Burundi on refugees, institutional reforms, electoral activities, reform of the judiciary, and promotion of human rights.  Like the brooms of the Sorcerer’s apprentice, the number of paragraphs in Security Council resolutions just keep on growing.
By the time we get to 2006, the Security Council is issuing a resolution, number 8928 calling on Iran to halt uranium enrichment and providing for sanctions.  That resolution is 10 pages long of single spaced text and goes into every detail of the impending sanctions.

In 2008 the Security Council passed 63 resolutions and in 2007, 55.  While this is a decrease from the 100 plus resolutions passed each year in the early 1990s, it still raises the question of man hours devoted to extremely complicated and comprehensive resolutions that seek not only to keep the peace, but also to restructure the states involved in conflict.  It also calls into question the ability of the members of the Security Council to absorb and decide on the details of peacekeeping, post conflict reconstruction and nation building that dominate the recent Security Council approaches to peacekeeping.  The Secretary General and Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) are calling the new resolutions “multi-dimensional.”  

With over 100,000 military and civilian personnel at headquarters and deployed in 16 missions abroad and a DPKO budget off about $7 billion, the peacekeeping functions of the UN dwarf its other responsibilities. The budget for the rest of the Secretariat was $1.9 billion in 2006. Keep in mind that in 1991 there was no Department of Peacekeeping Operations. Now there is a large and growing bureaucracy with vested interest in the perpetuation of ever more complex missions to guard against the failures of the past.  

The question we have to ask now is who is running whom? The member states no longer control the process.  Their staffs are dwarfed by the DPKO.  Even the largest mission in New York, the US mission, would be lost without the full resources of the US government in Washington to keep track of and make decisions on the proposals for peacekeeping provided to the Security Council by the Secretary General based on lengthy reports and recommendations of the DPKO. 

The second question that needs to be asked is “Is all of this necessary.”  We seemed to stumble along with a more limited number of missions and much more narrow objectives in the first 40 years of the UN’s existence. Do we really want the UN in the business of nation building?  In whose image? And under whose direction? The world did not fall apart when it ignored most local conflicts before the 1990s.  And if there was a problem in the area of peacekeeping, that problem appeared to be generated more by headquarters mistrust and dismissal of its commanders and representatives on the ground. Now DPKO is trying to determine every detail of a mission and take away the flexibility of the people running the show in the field who probably are in a position to know and understand a fast moving situation better than a bureaucrat in New York.  Brian Urqhart, long time Undersecretary with responsibility for peacekeeping before the advent of the DPKO, wrote: “Care should be taken in attempting to generalize and improve upon what has been part of the recipe for success [of United Nations peacekeeping], namely improvisation.”   (Robert A. Rubinstein, “Peacekeeping under Fire” Paradigm Publishers, Boulder CO, 2008, Chapter 2, page 22)

UN Peacekeeping - cheap at twice the price?

United Nations peacekeeping has been heavily criticized in books, articles, speeches and in our own Congress.  Criticisms have focused on the UN bureaucracy, the long lead time for establishing a peacekeeping mission, the failure of peacekeeping missions to completely fulfill their mandate, and, particularly, the handful of missions that went very badly wrong.  UN peacekeeping has become defined by Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda, and Sudan and not the other 58 peacekeeping missions that have been established by the Security Council since 1948.   

One of the harshest critics was John Bolton who served as the United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations in 2005 and 2006.  Interestingly, the Security Council approved over 100 resolutions in this period,  according to the record, Bolton voted for all of them. Since 1991, the United States has voted for over 1100 Security Council Resolutions.  And, in fact, the United States voted for all resolutions that were passed relating to Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda and Sudan.  One would assume that it the United Nations peacekeeping operations are so flawed, the United States, which helps negotiate the enabling resolutions, would balk from time to time and issue a veto. 

There is no doubt that peacekeeping, as the UN practices it could be more efficient and more effective, but there easier or cheaper alternatives if we want international authorization and approval.  Without that approval, it becomes extremely difficult, and in some cases impossible to attract troop contributors. Some countries are precluded by domestic legislation from participating in a peacekeeping mission that is not sanctioned by the UN.

There are other optiions.  Regional organizations like NATO and the African Union have engaged in peacekeeping with mixed results.  The United States has composed ad hoc coalitions of the willing, with limited UN cover.  And the United States created a special purpose peacekeeping operation outside of the UN system in the Sinai with the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) mission to monitor the Israeli Egyptian peace.  It incorporates troop contributions from 11 different countries and is composed of about 3000 military and civilian personnel.   In 1993, the MFO operating budget was $56.1 million and while this cost was divided into thirds by Egypt, Israel and the US, the actual US cost was much higher since the Department of Defense absorbed the cost of the US troops, which amounted to $46.6 million.  While the MFO total cost is not out of line with UN mission costs for equivalent missions, the US contribution is significantly greater than the 25% we pay for UN missions.  In short, the UN is a bargain when it comes to peacekeeping and yet still Congress complains.  

The fact that the former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld was anxious to cancel our participation in the MFO, suggests that the drain on US resources in terms of lift, logistics and retraining would exceed by a considerable margin the impact of a UN peacekeeping mission on our readiness.  So the question is not whether we should advocate unilateral or regional peacekeeping over UN missions, but which missions to mount through the UN. Or, more appropriately, when to pull the plug on a UN mission that has gone sour or is not fulfilling its mandate. 

In the case of Bosnia, which started with a peacekeeping mission in Croatia to provide security for three UN protected zones, all the proper steps in terms of getting agreement of the combatants were in place and the mission was operational, until the mission was expanded and the original mandate changed.  At that point the Security Council, advised by the military commander in the field, should have taken steps to provide adequate resources to do the job and to renegotiate agreement for the mission by the combatants or it should have pulled the troops home and terminated the mission.  Similarly, there were points in Somalia, Rwanda and Sudan where the game changed from the original concept sold to the Security Council and on which the peacekeeping missions were based.  In each case there should have been a reevaluation and conclusion that unless conditions were again favorable, the missions would have to be aborted. This is easier said than done. 

Public opinion and pride seem to stand in the way of considered military judgment.  The Secretary General does not want to encourage unilateralism or admit that the UN cannot handle the job and the members of the Security Council are reluctant to back away from doing something to relieve an humanitarian crisis, which has captured the attention of CNN.  Everyone seems to have his eye on his own reputation or standing in the public eye more than on the humanitarian tragedy that is unfolding.  The result is that the United Nations is discredited and its future ability to help devalued and people suffer. 

   

A Democratic Alliance of Development

The President elect has pledged action on the issues of energy supply and global warming.  He has been outspoken on the Darfur “genocide” and has criticized some African leaders for corruption.  He has a close advisor in Susan Rice who is well versed in the problems of Africa, having been Assistant Secretary of State under President Clinton.  She brings knowledge of AIDS, global poverty, conflict and terrorism as these issues relate to Africa.  And while Obama will have many priority issues to deal with when he takes office, he should be carful not to relegate the Africa related issues to the back-bench.  He should also be aware, as I am sure Susan is, that the problems that plague Africa cannot be dealt with in isolation from one another.

Aside from the humanitarian interests, the existence of al-Qaeda franchises in Algeria and Morocco, threaten not only those countries but Europe as well.  If failed states are, indeed, a Petri dish for the growth of terrorism, then Africa is an incubator.  The problems in a number of countries feed on each other.  Impoverishment, overpopulation, lack of resources, lack of education, corruption of leadership, draught and disease are the handmaidens of a failed state.  Global warming promises greater problems in the future, as arid areas expand and food crops contract.  Diseases like malaria will threaten new areas as warming and humidity patterns change.  And those individuals who manage to attain a higher level of education will be lured away by higher salaries than impoverished states and institutions can afford to pay.

Foreign assistance, external forces, sanctions, and mediation are among the few tools available to the West, to exert leverage for change.  If the mantra of the Obama Administration in America is “change,” it is all the more appropriate for the failing states of Africa.  Too often, our tools for change are blunt instruments or are not suited to the job.  While sanctions may have worked in Libya, they seem to have little impact on Sudan other than to increase the plight of the average Sudanese citizen.  Foreign forces can perhaps stabilize a situation, but are poorly designed to repair a country.  As for foreign assistance, it seems to have little lasting effect in the absence of good governance, corruption and the cleptocracies that prevail in too many countries.  It is a noble thought to expect that programs like the Millennium Challenge Account can impact on a failed state.  But the very nature of the Account precludes it from investing in a failed state.  Good governance is not an attribute that is in great demand in the most desperate countries where the watchword among the authorities is “take what you can get.”  Another major engine for growth in a developing economy, foreign direct investment is also not available given confiscatory laws, instability, xenophobia and other deterrents to rational investment.  And it is not at all clear that traditional aid programs, which seek to build infrastructure and bottom up development, are equal to the task, particularly when aid personnel are constantly under the threat of attack and death. 

While it is tempting to allow failed states to go their own way and devolve into chaos, the problem is that they too often are infectious to their neighbors and offer a safe haven to thugs, criminals, and terrorists.  But if our traditional tools are inadequate to deal with the problems of rebuilding societies, then perhaps the new administration should begin over and, working with other democratic states, building on some of the lesson of Iraq and Afghanistan, Northern Ireland and other crisis spots, and using the lessons of the past in terms of foreign assistance and private investment, build a new model for international intervention in situations like Sudan. 

An international study group of counter terrorist, foreign policy, political experts, and development experts, freed of the institutional jealousies, stereotypes and prejudices of existing institutions, might be able to offer a basis for international cooperation among like minded governments to deal with the disease of failed states.  While I am not an advocate of the concept of a league of democracies, in this case, an international effort among democracies might be able to propose credible policies and institutions that could deal effectively with issues like global poverty, disease, corruption, hunger and other destabilizing forces. Certainly, more of the same, as we have seen over the past decade, is not going to work. 

The Terror Track of Negotiations

On October 31, 2008, the State Department announced that the Government of Libya had deposited $1.5 billion through a humanitarian fund into a US controlled account, which will go to compensate American claimants who have terrorism-related claims against Libya. A number of other steps were also taken to settle all terrorism claims against the Libyan government that were before our courts.  The principle claimants for these funds are the families of the victims of Pan Am 103 and the 1986 LaBelle Disco attack in Berlin.  At the same time, the Libyans are to receive $300 million for the victims of the US airstrikes on Libya after the LaBelle Disco attack. That money will come from donations and not from US government or taxpayer funds. Payment of the claims now opens the way for appointment of an Ambassador to our Embassy in Libya.

The resolution of the problem with Libya came about through secret negotiations with the Libyan authorities in 1999 and 2000, initiated by then Assistant Secretary Indyk and continued under my direction when I took over from Martin at State.  We began these negotiations when Libya was still designated as a “state sponsor of terrorism,” and, in fact, had been complicit in both the LaBelle operation and the Pan Am 103 act.  With the election of 2000, and subsequent change of administration, the portfolio was sidelined for a period by the Bush administration.  When I briefed Secretary Powell, shortly after President Bush took office, Powell was surprised that these negotiations had taken place,  and even more surprised that they had been kept secret. 

The Bush administration picked up the negotiations once again After the 9/11 attack and in August 2003 Libya finally agreed to pay about $2.7 million in compensation to the victims of the PA 103 bombing and to deliver a letter to the UN Security Council accepting responsibility for the attack.  Then in December 2003, Libya announced that is was giving up its weapons of mass destruction program as a result of secret negotiations between US and UK intelligence agencies. 
From the very beginning of Martin’s and my negotiations we had structured the talks with the Libyans on a stair step model so that when they did something we required, we would reciprocate with something they wanted.  The issues were related in the first instance to terrorism, but also included weapons of mass destruction led by the CIA and Libyan behavior in Africa, which was directed by then Assistant Secretary for Africa, Susan Rice.  It was a complicated negotiation from the outset, but ultimately extremely successful. 

It was always politically sensitive, particularly in the beginning when any leak would have caused a political firestorm from the families of victims and from Congress.  Secretary Albright and President Clinton took a real risk in authorizing us to proceed.

There are several important points about these negotiations.  First, there would not have been a successful resolution had we not agreed, in the first instance, to negotiate, face to face with the representatives of a State Sponsor of Terrorism, one that had cost multiple American lives.  Second, our success owed considerable debt to several foreign countries, starting with the United Kingdom, but also including the Saudis who hosted our initial talks, and the Egyptians and Palestinians who put pressure on Qaddafi.  Third, this was a victory of intelligence and diplomacy.  While Qaddafi may have been sobered by the US attack on Libya, which was allegedly designed to assassinate him, there was no indication from 1986 to 1999, that military action would change Qaddafi’s policy.  Fourth, this negotiation would never have succeeded had the Bush Administration not been willing to pursue a course that Clinton had started and charted.  President Bush could have made the Clinton negotiations public and caused considerable political damage for the Democrats.  He did not do so, which indicates the great advantage we have when our diplomacy is backed by bipartisan cooperation. 

With this bipartisan success, as well as the progress in the negotiations with the North Koreans, the question has to be asked why some politicians continue to oppose negotiations with our enemies.  If we can negotiate with Qaddafi, and Kim Jun Il why not Nasrallah of Hezbollah, or Haniyya of Hamas?  What is the difference? Is it the $1.5 billion dollars Qaddafi paid? Is it that Israel stands in our way?  And how could it be Israel when they have just concluded a deal with Hezbollah on release of prisoners and have been in negotiations with Hamas over the return of Gilad Shalit? It is a mystery to me how we can make these distinctions.  Isn’t it time for us to scrap the general policy of no negotiations with terrorists or their sponsors, and replace it with a judgment in each case as to the likelihood of a successful resolution, which is in the US interest? 

Pernicious Rumors

Shortly after September 11, 2001, I traveled to the Middle East and visited Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait.  There was a certain amount of sympathy for America at that time, but there were many very bizarre rumors and beliefs about the attack.  One very strong rumor was that Israel had managed the attack and evidence of that, it was said, was that Jews did not go to work in the twin towers that day.  The Israeli motivation was to discredit the Arab cause and Islam in the eyes of all Americans.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  I tried very hard to talk sense into some of my friends there with very little impact.  The second rumor was that it had not been Saudis or Arabs who had hijacked the aircraft and crashed into the twin towers and the pentagon.  It was really Mosad, or Israeli intelligence agents posing as Arabs.  Again, the beliefs were hard to shake.  What I found, as well, was total denial that Saudis or Egyptians or that UAE citizens could have been involved.  I probed deeper and found that the prevailing view was that Arabs could not have pulled off such an operation.  And because of this, it must have been Israel. 

Let’s fast forward now to 2008 and a New York Times article of September 9, a few days ago.  The title was “9/11 Rumors That Become Conventional Wisdom” by Michael Slackman.  Slackman probed Arab attitudes in a shopping mall in Dubai, in a park in Algiers, in a café in Riyadh and all over Cairo.  Over and over people told Slackman that they “did not believe that a group of Arabs – like themselves – could possibly have waged such a successful operation against a superpower like the United States.”  They were convinced that both the United States and Israel had to be involved at least in the planning of the operation.  It was too sophisticated and well coordinated and successful to have been an Arab planned operation.  As Slackman quotes a Cairo shopkeeper: “Maybe people who executed the operation were Arabs, but the brains? No way…It was organized by other people, the United States or the Israelis.”  The myth of jews not going to work that day had also persisted.  “Why is it that on 9/11, the Jews didn’t go to work in the building?”

The story has over time morphed from an Israeli plot to an American plot against Muslims with the help of Israel.  This change in perspective has come about because of American actions since 9/11.  “What matters is we think it was an attack against Arabs,” said an electrician in Cairo.  There does not seem to be any hesitation about believing that Americans would attack their own citizens to justify an invasion of an Arab country.  Then, of course, the fact that we did not find Bin Laden is absolute proof that we did not want to find him since he gave us the excuse to continue the fight against Islam. 

It was perhaps understandable in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 that the Arab man on the street would have reached some bizarre conclusions about the events.  It is absolutely frightening that such attitudes have persisted and become part of the Arab landscape. 

As appalling as the persistence of these rumors is, it is equally appalling that the Arab man on the street has so little respect for Arab capabilities.  This sense of inferiority is a fundamental block to any form of negotiated settlement to the Palestinian issue.  Without the confidence that they can meet the Israelis on their own terms, they will continue to believe that whatever solution is reached, they will believe they were forced to make compromises.  That doesn’t augur well for a viable and sustainable agreement. 

It is equally problematic that the Arabs believe that the United States and Israel, that is the CIA and Mosad, can do whatever they want in the world and if they do not do it, it must be for a reason.  Then the speculation about the reason starts.  The inflated sense of our capabilities creates a problem for us when we do not carry through on our statements and promises. 

It is also a problem that people in the region apply their own experience and concepts of governance to us.  Hafez al Assad felt no remorse about attacking and destroying his own city of Hama – Saddam Hussein gassed the Kurds and murdered the Shiites.  There is no trust or confidence in the good intentions of political leaders in the region.  “Mubarak says whatever the Americans want him to say, and he’s lying for them, of course,” according to the shop keeper in Cairo.  And what applies to their own leaders must also apply in the United States.  Cynicism abounds and there are enough statements by religious and other bigots in the US to feed the idea that the US is hostile to Islam.

Does it really matter? I believe it does.  Ultimately, the war on terror depends on the man on the street.  He must help the authorities by reporting suspicious activates - the basic concept of a neighborhood watch.  He must support his government when it attacks terrorists.  And when the people support the terrorists and not those who oppose them, it makes if that much harder for leaders in the region actively to support our efforts. 

Russian Realism

Last Sunday, August 31, the Russian President Dmitri A. Medvedev gave a speech worthy of the most ardent realist.  He laid out in clear terms what Russia’s foreign policy approach would be to the world and to the United States.  It had all the overtones and quality of a speech worthy of the USSR in the glory days of the Cold War.  Medvedev, flush with Russia’s perceived success in the Russian version of Sherman’s march to the sea through Georgia, and the strong message that sent to the neighborhood, declared a zone of Russian influence and “privileged interests” on Russia’s borders and wherever Russia had friends, citizens and business interests.  Medvedev rejected the paradigm of a “unipolar” world and American dominance of the world stage. 

Meanwhile, Russian Prime Minister and puppet master Vladimir Putin was inspecting an oil pipeline that is being built to China and the Pacific reminding us all of Russia’s key position in the world oil markets and its willingness to use energy as well as its military for political purposes and influence.  The Medvedev/Putin show of force appeared to be a page taken straight from Hans Morganthau’s realist paradigm.  Certainly, the Russian leaders are not burdened by any “universal moral principles” in their approach to foreign policy and they seem to hold firm to the concept of “interest defined in terms of power.”

Thus, we may well be looking at a new old era of 19th century balance of power as former Secretary of State Kissinger claims, wherein states “in the absence of both an overriding ideological or strategic threat” are free to pursue narrow self-interest.  If the realist paradigm is the framework the Russians are using, then we have to ask why now and what convinced them that a policy shift from international cooperation, the goal of American Presidents since the fall of the Berlin wall, to international competition seemed productive. 

American triumphalism as expressed by authors like Francis Fukuyama and by neoconservative politicians may have played a part in recreating the Russian will to power and a desire to erase the embarrassment of the post communist years.  Russian political and economic stabilization under Putin and energy generated wealth and leverage certainly reinforced the sense in the Kremlin that Russia was not powerless and could take its “rightful place” once again. 

But one answer may also be in the signals that the US administration has been sending as represented by Secretary Condoleezza Rice in her article “American Realism for a New World,” published in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs. She stated that: “in the absence of workable relations with (Russia and China), diplomatic solutions to many international problems would be elusive.  Transnational terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, climate change and instability stemming from poverty and disease – these are dangers to all successful states, including those that might in another time have been violent rivals.”

There is perhaps an unintended message here that the Russians may be misreading – that we need Russia, more than they need us.  If that is the message being received, it would certainly embolden the Russian leadership to challenge us. 

Secretary Rice was applying a realist’s litmus test to our relations with Russia and recognized that Russia’s internal course is not subject to American leverage.  She pointed out the long-term effort of America “to marry power and principle.”  She suggested it was possible to create a paradigm that combined “realism and idealism.”   While arguing for realism with regard to Russia and China, she also held on to the paradigm of Francis Fukuyama and the ultimate triumph of democracy and the need to hold true to our commitment to democratic development, particularly in the Middle East.  She stood firmly against Samuel Huntington’s clash of civilizations when she said that “culture is not destiny.”  She also sought, without much evidence, to discredit the paradigm that China represents of “authoritarian capitalism” Finally, she seemed to be giving a nod to the Republican nominee John McCain’s new world order of a League of Democracies. 

Perhaps her article led the Russians astray.  More likely it only confused them.  She tried valiantly to deal with the competing philosophical approaches to foreign policy of our time and the fundamental outgrowth of the Bush administration’s missionary commitment to “the importance of human rights and the superiority of democracy as a form of government, both in principle and in practice.”  How indeed can you be at one and the same time a missionary and a realist?  This must be the question that Medvedev and Putin were asking themselves and one that Secretary Rice never successfully addressed. 

A Warmed Over Quartet Score or a New Tune in the Middle East?

According to Glenn Kessler in the Washington Post, Oct. 31, the Administration’s supplemental budget request sent to Congress on the 30th includes $435 million in additional aid for the Palestinian Authority, which is s six-fold increase in direct aid to the Palestinians.  $150 million would be for an immediate cash transfer to prevent a fiscal crisis and $130 would be in additional project financing.  $40 million is set aside for improving the Authority’s administration, $25 million for narcotics enforcement, $25 million for security forces loyal to Mahmoud Abbas, and $20 million would be for immediate improvement in health care at government clinics.  $15 million would be for refugees and $10 million for security for experts overseeing project assistance.  The package is targeted to enhance the position of Abbas and his Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, increase the number of Palestinian jobs through project assistance, and to compete with Hamas in critical areas like security and health care.   The Administration appears to be sweetening the pot for the Palestinians prior to the November summit in Annapolis.  But the pot may well be tainted since some members of Congress are already indicating that the funds for the Palestinian Authority are not a given and may be pulled from the legislation if the the November conference does not move the peace process forward.

While the Secretary is once again on the road to the Middle East to husband the conference through to some kind of agreement on principles, the political portents are not very encouraging.  Prime Minister Olmert already is facing rebellion in the ranks of his own party from those who are opposed to any concessions on the critical issues, like Jerusalem, that President Mahmoud Abbas says he must have.  And Abbas faces a fragmented Palestinian Authority and the prospect of renewed violence out of Gaza if he makes any concessions to Israel.  Almost any agreement faces the hostility of outside forces as well. 

The Syrians are deeply concerned that a final settlement of the Palestinian problem would leave them as odd man out with no prospect of getting the Golan back.  The Israelis will have very little incentive to trade off the Golan if that is the only problem left in the Arab-Israel agenda.  Freeing up the Israeli military from duty in the West Bank and positions around Gaza, as an agreement with the Palestinians would presumably do, would make Syria and Hezbollah more vulnerable and easier for Israel to deal with.  It is therefore likely that the Syrians will put pressure on Hamas and its leadership in Damascus to sabotage the Annapolis meeting by generating a confrontation on its eve to keep Olmert at home.

The Iranians, for their part, want to keep the pressure on Israel to keep the idea fixed in Israeli minds that an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities could have serious consequences in the form of terrorist attacks by Iran’s allies in Hezbollah and Hamas.  Last Saturday, Aytollah Khameni proposed a boycott of the Annapolis meeting.  He suggested, what countries like Saudi Arabia fear, that the meeting has been designed by the Americans to bolster Israel’s position and serve its interests rather than Palestinian interests.   

It would be truly a miracle if the weakest Israeli Prime Minister in years and the leader of the rump Palestinian area could find common cause on peace and make it stick.   The one thing going for this conference is that the parties may fear failure more than success.  However, looking at the facts on the ground it is a close call.

It is understandable that the US Administration needs a success given our low standing in the world.  But it is not at all clear why President Bush chose to pursue the Palestinian issue so late in his tenure and when his credibility and authority are  at an all time low.   US policy is seen as having failed in Iraq, failed in Iran, failed in Lebanon and failed in the war on terror.  It is certainly the common wisdom in the Arab world that the US will fail again in Annapolis.   Countries in the region are increasingly inclined to ignore the United States, defy our President and wait for our elections.  In the meantime, a lot more can go wrong.  Let us hope that the troika of Rice, Olmert and Abbas have something more up their sleeves than warmed over quartet music and the formation of yet another committee. 

Jerusalem, the Eternal Capital of Israel

On August 11, the New York Times published an article by Stephen Erlanger on the divided road the Israelis are building around Jerusalem.  This road combines two roads - one for the Palestinians to be able to move from the Northern West Bank to the Southern West Bank and back - and one for the Israelis.  The roads are separated by a high wall.  For the Israelis, there are a number of exits that allow travelers to go into Jerusalem or down into the Jordan Valley.  For the Palestinians, there are no exits except at the terminal points.   The road is not news, nor is the concept.  It is, instead the fulfillment of former Prime Minister Arik Sharon’s vision of the future for the Palestinian entities in Judea and Samaria. Sharon told me his idea when we discussed the issue of settlements and how one could disentangle the Jewish and Palestinian populations.  To build a two state solution we in the State Department had always thought that there had to be real territorial unity between the Northern and Southern parts of the West Bank and that the Palestinian State had to have a presence in Jerusalem.  In fact, President Bush has on several occasions talked about the need for territorial contiguity within the Palestinian state. Sharon, however, never thought of the West Bank as one contiguous Palestinian entity that could form the basis of a State.

Sharon spoke of the contiguity of movement - not territory.  His vision was of a series of tunnels and restricted access roads that would tie the various Palestinian parcels of land together. Meanwhile, Israel would dominate the high points and strategic crossing points to ensure Israel’s security in the future.  Sharon, who drove the settlement process, placed these Israeli outposts as a guarantee against the possibility of terrorist dominated Palestinian entity and invasion from the East. 

One of the implications of the new road is that the Palestinians neighborhoods of Jerusalem are increasingly isolated by physical barriers from the rest of the West Bank.  In fact, Sharon never contemplated giving any part of Jerusalem up.  From the earliest days, in 1980, when I was working with Sol Linowitz on the Autonomy negotiations Sharon made it clear to us that we should start with the Jerusalem question because once the Palestinians accepted Israeli sovereignty over all of Jerusalem, then a settlement of other issues and peace would be relatively easy to reach.  He never answered the question of how we were to get the Palestinians, let alone the Islamic world, to agree to such a solution.

The settlements that Israel has built around Jerusalem are unworthy of the name “settlement.”  They are mini cities that are permanent fixtures.  Their imposing presence convinced both Presidents Clinton and Bush that the Palestinians would have to accept this fait accompli.  And that very acceptance has pointed the way for Israel’s political leadership toward constructing - literally - a unilateral final resolution of the Jerusalem question.    There is still some more building to do to fill in the gaps that exist, but despite the inevitable wringing of hands in the State Department, I have little doubt that the Israeli plans will go forward and that the Arab parts of Jerusalem will, within ten years, be nothing more than an isolated island in the middle of a sprawling Israeli city. 

This is a story that has a long history.  My first post was in Israel in 1969.  At that time, Israel was in the process of establishing settlements in the Jordan valley.  They would start as Nahals, or military outposts, designed to pin down the border with Jordan and to secure the heights against future attack from the East. And gradually they would metamorphose into civilian settlements. The Israeli government had no declared policy of siezing the Jordan valley, but the Deputy Prime Minister at the time, Yigal Allon had written a short book in Hebrew outlining his concept of a peace in which Israel would gain sovereignty over one third of the West Bank along the Jordan border.  I wrote a report linking the plan to the settlements, but there was no interest in Washington in the Embassy in the facts on the ground.  Why waste time and leverage on settlements when all our efforts were directed toward a final settlement.

From that point on, we have watched and done nothing as the Israelis have built hundreds of settlements all over the West Bank.  And we have been particularly passive when it comes to Jerusalem.  Once in a while we have protested or sent our Ambassadors in to complain, but the Israelis know full well that we are not going to press the point.  It has always been inconvenient to press the Israelis on what was seen as the secondary question of the settlements when the more important issue of a final peace agreement was at stake.  And yet it is this very secondary question that has gradually excluded an increasingly large area of Palestinian land from any possible agreement and may put the possibility of any final agreement out of reach forever.

When I started in the business, my bosses conceded that the Latrun Salient - that small spit of Palestinian land that juts out from the West Bank into the land bridge that Israel had between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem - would be taken off the table and awarded to Israel. Now we are talking about taking all major Israeli city settlements off the table - over 8% of the West Bank.  And very soon, we will likely see the encirclement of Jerusalem completed and that too will come off the table.      

When that day comes the chances for peace will be gone, possibly forever.  How could a Palestinian agree to a settlement that did not have Jerusalem as an integral component? Yet I have not yet seen a US administration that has the political will to  stop the permanent acquisition of Jerusalem as the undivided eternal capital of Israel. The Israelis know very well that when the issue is Jerusalem, Congress will go their way and the President will not be far behind.  Objections based on the impact on our interests in the region will melt away in the warm glow of American politics.  It is not inevitable, but it is certainly possible.  So we had better start to plan now for how we will manage our interests in the long term as Palestinian statehood and an Arab stake in Jerusalem dissolve in the politics of Israel and America. 

A Poisonous Cocktail in a Perfect Storm

If the worst predictions of our scientific community come to pass,Africa may be facing a poisonous cocktail of natural and man made events that will have a calamitous impact. And while the Africans themselves will bear some of the blame for their predicament, the developed world will have to take most of the credit. Certainly, Africa was the victim of Western colonialism and imperialism that set up artificial borders, broke down indigenous leadership and loyalties, plundered the continents resources and enslaved its people. While the west has sought to compensate through bilateral and multilateral AID projects, the effects have been mixed and at times have hurt as much as helped. And in no case has the assistance been overly generous.

On this background, the record of African leadership, with some exceptions has been too often marked by corruption and exploitation of the people for personal gain and status. And traditional enmities and prejudices have been played out with extraordinary violence as outbreaks of genocide. The international community has been either absent, as in the case of Rwanda, or ineffective, as in Somalia and Darfur. The UN has been frozen out or AWOL and the African Union too fragmented, unprepared and under funded to pick up the slack.

It is not only human depredations that have inflicted the continent. Since the 1980’s Africa has been developing a cancer in the form of HIV/AIDS. Immediate attention could have prevented thousands of deaths, but for many in the West it was a disease of druggies and homosexuals, and among some there was a belief in God’s wrath being visited. Part of the fuel that keeps the pandemic burning is prostitution and dirty needles, but the largest donor to AIDS programs, the United States refuses, by law to support clean needle programs or programs to provide health care specifically targeted at prostitutes. Politics at home, which have nothing to do with Africa’s problems are defining America’s approach. As a result of HIV/AIDS Africa’s ranks of security and health care workers are being thinned while the security and health problems mount.

If Africa was now hit with an influenza pandemic like Avian Flu, and if the predictions are even close to correct, the health care facilities would be overwhelmed in a matter of days. Doctors and nurses have been educated and trained in Africa and they have emigrated to the West for better salaries. With a pandemic the needs of the West backed by the dollars of the West would act as a magnet for remaining trained personnel, at least the ones that do not succumb to the influenza themselves. There would be little help from vaccines that have yet to be developed and antivirals that could save lives are in short supply, manufactured and stockpiled in the West and destined by politics to save lives in the West.  And because the virus would be carried by people, transportation systems would be shut down as countries and cities sought to protect themselves. The Bubonic plague wiped out a third of Europe. The Avian flue could wipe out a third of Africa.

Africa is a continent that is highly sensitive to the weather. Much of the farming in large parts of Africa is subsistence and highly vulnerable to drought. Global warming has captured the headlines, but the effects and timing are still dimly understood by the average American. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report says: “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal,…” With that warming will come significant changes in water supplies and growing seasons. Africa is specified as a continent that will be particularly hard hit. Localized starvation is already a problem in parts of Africa so any increase in temperatures and reduction in water resources could have disastrous results. Up to now, the international community has been able to respond to starvation when access is assured, but if the world is faced with an influenza pandemic, access will not be assured and widespread starvation is likely. At the same time, warming has been shown to spread and intensify many diseases that currently plague Africa. As water supplies dwindled clean water would be harder to find and diarrhoeal diseases would run rampant among children and infants causing countless deaths.  Cardio-respiratory and infectious diseases would intensify their grip while respirators and drug supplies proved inadequate to the enlarged task. With medical facilities and resources already stretched by HIV/AIDs, malaria, diarrhoeal diseases, and other tropical diseases like West Nile virus, Africa would face a complete breakdown in public health with massive death rates and severe economic impact.

One thing is clear, the international community does not have the coordination, planning, funds, cooperation, organization and political will to deal with such a perfect storm of biblical plagues in Africa and other less developed regions in the world. And there seems to be little inclination by the leading Western countries to care. While the West would not be immune from such disasters, we have the resources in wealth, technology and trained people to adapt to climate change and deal with massive medical emergencies. And so it may come to pass, that Africa, suffers the consequences of the smokestack industries in China the gas guzzlers of the United States and the inheritance of European colonialism and imperialism.

Iraq: Blame, Politics, and Retreat

Democrats and Republicans alike are struggling with the problem of Iraq and how to approach it. Within the Democratic party there may be as many ideas as there are members of Congress, but the primary split appears to be between those who believe that a proposal that sets benchmarks and a time table for Iraqi government performance will not lead to redeployment of our troops home quickly enough, while others worry that setting benchmarks and a timetable will expose the Democrats to charges of micro managing a military engagement. The discussion in Democratic circles have zeroed in on three continuing commitments after US troop redeployment that will require some continued US military presence: 1) training the Iraqi police, security and military forces; 2) protecting our forces, personnel and installations; and 3) continuing special operations against al Qaeda and other anti-American terrorists. In this context they would ramp up pressure on the Sunnis and Shiites to compromise, reduce the area of US occupation, resize the US military presence, and focus on the direct threats to US security such as a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan. 

For their part, in an excess of apparent defeatism, some Republicans are hoping to keep a lid on the war and extend the problem into the next administration in the expectation that a Democratic president would have to take ownership of the Iraq war. It is hoped that this would have long term legacy implications for the Democratic Party as it faced the prospect of failure and chaos in Iraq or the necessity to commit even more troops. President Bush has made it clear in his public statements that this war will not be ended in his administration. In short, at least for some political operatives, the current discussion may have less to do with concern for our troops or US national interests than for which party is going to take the blame for Iraq. The ghost of Vietnam is hovering around these discussions. 

I do not believe that the bulk of our elected representatives are so cynical that they would put politics and Party above the lives of our troops or the national interest. But it is certainly suspicious that the Democrats have picked the target date of March 2008 for the beginning of redeployment while the President is saying the problem is up to the next administration to solve. Is it all about the timetable?

 At least one thing seems clear, I don’t hear many people still talking about democracy in Iraq as being our principle war aim. It is not surprising that inside Iraq, itself, there is a big gap on the issue of democracy between the competing political sects.  A USA Today poll published March 19 indicated that Sunnis preferred a strong leader to democracy by 41% to 38%. Kurds overwhelmingly favored democracy by 66% to 13%. Shiites broke just about even between democracy and an Islamic state. The minority Sunnis are, understandably, not enthusiastic about a democracy that would give permanent control to the majority Shiites. On a countrywide basis those opting for a strong leader have gone from 18% in 2005 to 26% now; the Islamic state has gone from 12% to 22% and democracy from 64% to 53%. It would appear that the longer we, the Americans stay, the further away we get from democracy in Iraq. 

The poll makes clear that since 2005 Iraqi confidence in the future has deteriorated with 39% saying things were bad in 2005 and 50% saying they are bad today. At the same time attitudes toward the US have dropped like a rock. Of all the countries proposed, including Iran and Syria, the US and UK had the highest negatives. What is most disturbing is that 51% felt that attacks on coalition forces were acceptable compared to 17% in 2004. More Iraqis now believe that the US invasion was wrong. Iraqis, in fact, gave the US and UK a ringing vote of no confidence with 82% saying they had no confidence in the US and UK occupation forces and 77% saying they had done a bad job. They also say that the surge will make things worse and 35% say we should leave now.  That has to raise some questions about why we are in Iraq. In fact, Iraq has sucked the air out of most talk in our government about democracy in the entire region.  Iraq so dominates the political agenda that politicians and policy makers have little time to consider the war on terror or the spread of democracy.  As we look for help from Arab governments, including Syria and Iran, it would appear that our government believes it would be churlish and counterproductive to simultaneously criticize their performance on democracy or human rights.